Why is everyone so afraid of sharks and crocs?

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Gotta say, some people here are totally self-righteous and need to back off. I could quite easily make the same topic about komodo dragons. I'm personally a huge lover of lizards and happen to find them to be incredible creatures. Whereas I'd be weary to approach one in reality, I'd love to see them up close.

But would I ever judge anyone for being scared of one? No. Would I be angry at the media for making them look bad? No. Do I even know if they're as dangerous as we're led to believe? Honestly, not a clue.

But I can tell you that the common house spider in the UK is entirely harmless, and then can list a huge amount of people that refuse to even be in the same room as one. Me, however, I would quite happily let one stroll onto my hand and then place it outside. But I would never ever kick up a fuss about someone being scared of them. Everyone has their interests, likes, dislikes and fears and honestly, who are you to judge them for it?

I'm not even remotely scared of crocs (big fan of those) but I do have a huge fear of sharks. To the point where I get (albeit infrequent) night terrors, waking up screaming after dreaming about being attacked by one.

I can give you MY reasons for this, as you can give YOUR reasons for not being scared of them. For me, I'm not a great swimmer, whereas they are. They have much larger teeth than me, they have the aesthetic appearance of danger (dead eyes, visible sharp teeth, gills that arguably resemble scars), and I've also seen shark attacks, both real and in movies. It might STILL be an irrational fear for you and/or society, but it's rational for ME.

I'm sorry for those of you who find them 'beautiful' or 'brilliant', but I'm sure I won't offend them by being terrified of them. If I was a shark, I'd be proud.

It took me an awful lot of balls to get in the water in this game. I can't even look at a picture of a shark without panicking. But I did it, got all the relics and all the hunting achievements. And I was damn proud.

Sharks are the reason why I refuse to step foot in the ocean, and both are a partial reason why I will never go to Australia.

A fear of sharks is not a "legitimate" fear, it is totally irrational. Far more people die in the U.S. alone from bee stings, car accidents, lightning strikes, and falling in the shower than worldwide shark attacks despite the millions and millions of people that swim in the ocean ever year.

So you won't go in the ocean, yet you probably take a shower, go outside when bees are out, ride in/drive a car, and have been outside during a storm.

Legitimate?

Being stung by a bee is much less likely to kill an average person than a shark. The only reason those things kill more people are because more people take part in them.

In chances of survival, a bee sting or car crash is much less dangerous.

Then of course, is the fact that this is in water, and you can hardly see anything, nor can you even attack.

Do you have any idea how many people go in the ocean ever year? According to http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/papers/Coastal_Zone_Pop_Method.pdf 40% of the worlds population lives within 100km of a coastline.

Sharks are not more lethal than bees as the shark usually lets go because they don't like how we taste. kfiHave you ever been to Miami in the summer? There are literally millions of separate trips into the ocean each year by humans, and single digit shark attacks. According to http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/medical.htm 1 in 10,000 people will get struck my lightning in their lives, do you think one in 10,000 gets eaten by a shark?

Sharks are awesome. They play a critical role in the food chain, and are majestic creatures. It is precisely this irrational fear of them that is leading to their extinction. "lets save dolphins, they are so cute!!!! Oh the sharks getting finned over there? F--- them they are scary"

Wish I could upvote on GFAQs. Sharks really are a victim of the way they are portrayed in the media. **** Jaws. **** every Bond villain with a shark tank. It's just sad that so many people actually believe that they are as dangerous as these movies make them out to be. Seriously, Spielberg is an a-hole for what he has done to these creatures.

Do your homework first before calling Spielberg names. He directed a movie based on a novel by an author who later admitted that if he knew how sharks really behaved, he wouldn't have written the book. Spielberg took the directing job because that was his big break.

I love how everyone is using real life stats for pointing out sharks are scary/not as scary. You probably never see this on other boards with topic names like "Why are Russians/Chinese/Ethnic "bad guys" of the game so scary". Real life sharks to me are awesome but there is no way i would get in the water with them unprotected, for the same reason i don't camp in a bear cave. I'm not a *#$*ing idiot.

FC3 sharks and crocs are scary because A: they can surprise you and in the case of sharks B: you can't do a goddamn thing because you are stuck in the water.

Now I know some of you shark supporters are going to say "But Brokentusk REAL sharks don't act like that" and you know what you're probably right. But then again lets put a couple of bullets in your arms that you have to dig out with a stick, splash some blood on you from the guys you just stabbed in the neck, and put you shoulder deep in that tiger you just killed. Then I dare you to go in the water like that and lets see if that shark isn't interested in you.

HK-47: Can I break his neck now master? It's been a long time fantasy of mine. You: Maybe later..HK-47: Did you hear that meatbag? "I'LL BE BACK!"

I'll admit having a fear of sharks is not entirely irrational-all I was trying to say that having such a deep fear of sharks as to refuse to step into the water along a coastline is an irrational fear.

A fear becomes a phobia-and by definition irrational- when it is not in proportion to the risk associated with the activity. Thousands of people die from food poisoning each year in this country, yet most of us do not have a fear of undercooked chicken. 5-10 people per year die WORLDWIDE each year from shark attacks.

Would I choose to take a swim in the ocean off a boat a hundred miles from land in waters know to have a large shark population? No. Would I be afraid if I were swimming in the Gulf of Mexico (as I have been known to do) and saw a shark fin over the waves? Almost certainly yes. But would I have such a large irrational fear of shark attack that I would never even go in the ocean under any circumstance? No, that would be taking a fear to an irrational level and making it into a phobia.

Sharks are not malicious, they are what they are, predators. They aren't "mean," they have evolved to be predators. If you have watched mythbusters you know they don't bite humans regularly, even when goaded into it. We are not part of their instinctual memory of foodstuffs.

The TC posed a question "Why is everyone so afraid of sharks" and the board chose to take it to a deeper level. People are afraid of sharks because humans are irrational.

I personally got over my own irrational fear of sharks by going skydiving multiple times. It was terrifying, but the phobia is gone. I am not always rational either, and I am not better than anyone else.

"The Miss Universe Pageant is fixed, the winners are always from Earth."

I don't know enough about psychology to really comment on how fear works, especially considering that people are different and their mental workings, conscious and subconscious, are bound to differ greatly.

But I will say that just because sharks consume humans through a mistake does not mean that people shouldn't be scared. The point is that they can and have been known to consume humans at all. People are worried about being attacked, not about whether the shark meant it or not.

Also, there's another level of psychology at play here involving video games. Not only is fear a complex area as it is, but inciting it virtually is another ball game. We jump into theories of immersion and vicariism with gaming. For all we know, the fear of sharks and crocs in this game could simply come from not wanting to be abrubtly surprised, at least for the people who, for whatever reason, don't legitimately fear these creatures.

If they carry a real phobia of them, then being immersed in a game that involves them is a bigger problem for those gamers.

I have a fear of sharks...but I'm not afraid of getting mauled by one right now because I'm sitting in McDonald's. I'm much more worried about food poisoning because of that but this doesn't somehow make a fear of a large powerful animal that lives in a completely foreign medium to you irrational.